


In Pieces

by Jessa



Series: Multi-chapter WIPS [2]
Category: Reylo - Fandom, finnlo - Fandom, finnreylo - Fandom
Genre: Abortion, F/M, Finn cross-dresses, Gen, M/M, Menstruation, Multi, Polyamory, Pregnancy, Rey as a child (16yo), Rey as an adult (18yo), Rey as an adult (20yo), Rey as an adult (21yo), Reylo HEA, Star Wars / Mary Shelley (film 2017) crossover AU, first blood, recreational drug use (cigarettes)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 00:44:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16713271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessa/pseuds/Jessa
Summary: A modern Mary Shelley AU.





	In Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to HarpiaHarpyja for beta-ing and everyone in two-halves-of-reylo for the encouragement to get this work finally happening.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t know what I’m waiting for here.” - Mary (Elle Fanning)
> 
> This story begins in the year 2013, when Rey is 16.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the theme ‘Vampires’ set by @reylomonsters for Reylo Monster Week 2018.
> 
> Mary Shelley (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) really was born on a Wednesday and her mother (Mary Wollstonecraft) really was born on a Sunday.

Rey Wollstonecraft Maul was born full of woe on a Wednesday. Her mother died on a Sunday and with her went all that was fair and good in the world - but not what was wise or gay. Just those first two things. Nothing in Rey’s life is fair, and very little in Rey’s life is good, but there might be something wise, somewhere in her head, or some little thing in her heart that’s gay.

Rey knows about all this because her father used to read her that rhyme until she was old enough to tell him not to, which wasn’t for that long because _‘no’_ was her very first word. Her father still loves to remind her of that fact, and Rey still hates him for it. She calls him _Maul._

Darth Maul is an academic who writes kids’ fiction in his spare time. He tutors sessionally in the Faculty of Classics and Archaeology at the University of Melbourne. He specialises in Romantic-era literature.

Rey lives with him – and her stepmother and stepbrother – in a renovated inner-city hipster house that her stepmother pays the mortgage on with money she makes from her editing job. Her stepmother says that’s because Maul is still waiting to be published, and sessional tutors get paid jack shit. Rey calls her _Qi’ra._

Rey and Finn are both homeschooled because Maul and Qi’ra are anti-government and don’t believe in the value of mainstream education. They’re also ‘anti-device’. Rey and Finn don’t have a TV. No smartphones, no tablets; just books. A library full of printed and bound books. Somehow, at some point in her childhood, Rey began linking important events in her life to the books she was reading when they happened. For example...

When Rey was twelve years old she first menstruated. It was at an end-of-season barbecue after Saturday morning competition tennis – Under 13’s – when she was still dressed in her tennis whites, a white pleated dress and white bloomers. She was sitting on a plastic lawn chair, reading _Breaking Dawn_ when her stepmother quietly told her to close her legs.

Rey chews at the nail of her thumb, thinking back to then as she frowns down at the burn mark she’s just made on the carpet in Maul’s attic. She takes another long drag on her cigarette as she rubs away at the patch, visibly scorched by the fallen ash.

Qi’ra said Rey had blood on her bloomers. She gave her some Kotex. Then she gave her ‘the talk’. After that, Rey resolved to never be as stupid as Bella in _Twilight_.

Rey takes another drag on her cigarette and spritzes the air again with the bottle of Arc Orange Oil, masking the bitter smell of the nicotine in the air. She keeps it hidden behind a brittle copy of John William Polidori’s _The Vampyre_. That’s also where she keeps her smokes. She doesn’t buy them. She scavenges half-smoked butts off the street and saves them for moments like these.

Rey’s stepbrother, Finn, wants to be a girl, and Rey likes to read him stories. Stories like _The Boy in the Dress_ by David Walliams. Once, when Rey was fourteen, she stole someone’s iPhone from the local pool and hacked into a neighbour’s wifi so Finn could binge-watch episodes of _SheZow_ online. Now, Rey just watches Pornhub on it.

Rey hates Maul but she’s always loved the writing studio he keeps here in this attic, loved hiding away here and reading whatever she can. And loved to invent stories for Finn about worlds far, far away from here. Although now she’s sixteen she does it less and less.

These days she confines herself more often than not to her room and bunkers down there with _The Story of The Eye_ by Georges Bataille. She likes to read that story then write her own smut in lined notebooks she buys from the local independent grocer, three blocks away from her house.

Even Maul still writes - like literally _writes_ \- and illustrates by hand a kids’ fiction series called _Pilots of Destiny_. He types his manuscripts on a typewriter that he gets serviced at what must be one of the last repair shops in the whole of town. He buys the ribbons there, too.

And even though Rey hates Maul, she has always quite enjoyed the stories he writes because they’re about flying. When she was very small she dreamed of piloting something. Her favourite childhood stories are still the ones where girls are independent and fierce, girls like Pippi Longstocking. Rey always thought Ariel was a sap, although the Disney prince she fell in love with used to make her wanna kiss her pillow when she was seven.

Rey reaches in behind a paperback copy of Bram Stoker’s _Dracula_. It’s a Penguin Popular Classic. The man on the cover has always fascinated Rey. He holds the woman in a bridal carry. She likes to imagine someone she hasn’t met yet holding her like that. And maybe putting his mouth to her neck and biting at her softly, but just enough to draw a little blood.

 _I don’t know what I’m waiting for here,_ she thinks, as she stares at the black and white image of the woman on the paperback cover, as though she might answer.


End file.
